The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Typically, network controllers such as Ethernet controllers may be provided in legacy server systems either as a local area network (LAN) on motherboard (LOM), or as a proprietary daughter card. A BMC may be connected to the network controller in a 1 to 1 ratio. The network controller, and the connection between the network controller and the BMC, may be referred to as a sideband interface. Typically, the network controller may also be coupled with a host processor running or associated with the operating system (OS) of the system. In other words, the host processor may share the network controller with the BMC to send and/or receive Ethernet traffic. In operation, the network controller may analyze incoming network traffic and identify whether the network traffic is intended for the host processor or the BMC. The network controller may then route the network traffic appropriately.
However, in some rack scale servers, the network controller may not be a separate physical element of the system, but may instead be an element of a hybrid switch that is used for network connectivity. In these embodiments, the host processor and BMC may be unable to share the network controller because the network controller may not be a separate physical entity that is able to be physically coupled with both the controller and the BMC. As a result, there may be no sideband interface which may result in increased costs due to the use of a dedicated Ethernet port to the hybrid switch to communicate with the BMC.